Diabolos Ex Machina v0.2

Trilkin 40

With recommendations from @FarCryFromHuman and my own personal observations of the way this deck has been playing out, here is my current revision of this deck. I stress that this is still pretty much a rough draft, but I'm starting to like how this is coming out. It has a lot of strength in it and it actually doesn't require that much setup time.

For more extensive notes, please go check out 0.1. Here's an explanation of the changes I made, though.

~Removals~

-1 Apocalypse - I don't really need two in this deck since it's essentially an emergency reset button anyway. I was considering cutting both of them out entirely because of how rarely this will ever fire, but then I realized the virtue in keeping it against a wide variety of match ups.

-1 Leprechaun - I never really used my SMCs for much other than fodder, so there was no point in ever having this out. It did no work. That also means...

-2 SMC - Why bother? In the cases where I'd need to fetch my icebreaker mid-run, there's a strong chance it's in my heap and Clone Chip takes care of that already. It, again, might be good for those rare cases where you need to SMC out a Harbinger for breaking stuff or saving yourself, but I feel like Hunting Grounds already serves the purpose of an emergency 'help me!' button as it is.

-2 Dyson Mem. Chip - There was no reason to have these. They were in the deck for the same reason Leprechaun was, but since my focus shifted away from SMC, these ended up pointless as well. Having the extra links might've been nice against traces, but the cost wasn't justifiable.


~Additions~

+2 Special Order - No SMCs and no Leprechaun means I free a lot of influence. Since I'll only ever really need to fetch for my icebreaker early it made sense to replace the SMCs with these. They can be used as fodder later.

+2 Traffic Jam - Anti-Medtech/Breakthrough and Astrotrain tech primarily. Usable as fodder for match ups it just wouldn't be useful.

+2 R&D Interfaces - It's very easy to attain R&D lock as Apex since he can break most ice extremely cheaply. When there are no remotes worth scoring out of and the corp is playing conservatively, this is your alternate win condition.


I still believe that Apex is usable. The inability to use Same Old Thing is EXTREMELY harmful to an event-oriented toolbox build like this. In the future I might look more into making it hardware based instead though most of the good hardware is influence heavy. I'd especially like something other than the 3x Uninstalls since there is never really a moment those are actually useful except when I know I'll be running into an Archer or Wisp or something and I don't have a Clone Chip out to save my icebreaker. In that case, I'd use Always Be Running to break the ETR.

This deck requires a lot of thought to play, I've noticed. It's very difficult to pilot because you need to consider that the thing you put down as fodder for this turn might be needed a few turns from now. Levy eases this somewhat and you can prioritize what you actually trash when you do go to Levy. That said, I think an toolbox-styled Apex deck like this can be very solid. Once it's set up and there's a huge wall of facedown cards for Apex to om nom up, it can be very intimidating for the corp. Flatlining is suddenly nearly impossible. There aren't any resources to really trash meaning Apex can run with tags fairly safely. He doesn't use very much money (except for Implants) so Closed Accounts isn't really threatening to him.

His weakness - and it's a TREMENDOUS one that will probably hamstring him unless we see some really good virtual resources out of Mumbad - is the inability to use some of the best runner cards in the game. Same Old Thing would make this deck extraordinarily powerful, but it simply can't be used. I've considered possibly replacing the Levy with a Trope since it's FAR easier to get back with Clone Chip if it gets trashed somehow. The MU from Heartbeat also lets me install it with my icebreaker. Will see how things go with this set up for now, though.

Feedback is, as always, welcome!

2 comments
18 Sep 2015 Trilkin

Huh. I totally put updated notes, but it isn't reflecting on the page. Let's see if I can fix that.

23 Sep 2015 razortoy

You could consider swapping out one of the clone chips for a Deja Vu. It might help if you needed to get an event back?